96:365 Almost Perfect

Almost Perfect

Anna: While the kids and I were out and about yesterday, we stopped at a Purdy's to pick up some chocolates. It's been a long time since we've indulged. My frugal nature, however, prevented me from paying for a fancy box of mixed chocolates when I could get more for my money from the "Almost Perfect" selection - bags of chocolate confections that, for one reason or another, weren't good enough for the fancy boxes or the display case.

Hey, they taste the same. What do I care if the surface as a scratch on it? *L*

Now, if I could just figure out why blogger took this photo and flipped it 90 degrees...

95:365 Signs and Reflections

Anna: After a trip to the library, the kids and I met Philippe for lunch at a mall downtown. Afterwards, I finally did something I've been meaning to do for our Art Project for a very long time. This mall has unique sign holders all over the place, made of wrought iron, brass, welded steel, rebar and other materials. This spider is a detail of one of them. The bottom portion of the
sign holder is a large web with the spider near the base. The web supports a frame that holds the signs. I got photos of about a dozen of these, each very unique in design, and I'm sure I've missed at least a few.





One section of the mall has a gorgeous skylight, surrounded by mirrors on the upper levels. The effect on a bright day like today is quite amazing. The photo doesn't do it justice.

93 and 94:365 Double post

Anna: Here's the photo I meant to post yesterday, but never got around to uploading before midnight.

Yeah, I think my daughter's cat is adorable. She has this habit of tucking her nose under things - her own leg, a pillow, blankets, our ears... whatever.







My elder daughter and I went for an evening photo walk, which turned out to be much shorter than expected, as it started to rain. We got a few pictures, though.


The road in front of our apartment building overlooks the river valley on the opposite side. It's all part of the park system, and there are a number of groomed areas clear enough of trees that we can get lovely views of the river. I was walking into one of these when I noticed something moving in the brush to the side and realized that it was a person moving under his/her covers.

You know, when it comes to being homeless, I can think of a lot worse places to have to sleep. This spot is just gorgeous.





A bit more effort into acquiring the comforts of home. Getting that couch down the sides of the ravine must've been quite the job.














We were walking past the other tower in our building when I did a double take, trying to figure out what it was I just saw on the sidewalk.

Yes, it really was a plastic woman with a cobra.

92:365 - Evening walk

Evening walk.. *nothing* was camera safe.. :D


Not sure what to say.. it stood still long enough for me to take a shot.. Wind and Macro don't mix, I've discovered.













This is a nice, striking mistake.. (wind again :D )














Daughter was apparently providing transport.














Other daughter was providing opportunity :P















Anna's got a thing for fungus, so I thought I'd grab this one.. I like the way it turned out :).










Anna: Philippe took quite a few more great macro shots, which can be seen here. I'm just uploading one of my photos from today on this blog. I uploaded more here, if you want to see them.



I like the little dandelion seed caught in a spider web in the bottom corner. :-D

91:365 At the museum - playing with a new lens

Anna: Philippe got himself a new macro lens today - I'll leave him to explain what he got - so we went to the museum again to test it out. I didn't take very many pictures myself this time, but I did get a few interesting ones.



Can you figure out what this is?

















Here's the whole thing. It's the result of a lightning strike following a copper wire into damp soil. The lightning boiled away the water and melted the soil into glass, leaving a bit of copper wire still visible at the end. Freaky!












I finally got a decent shot of my favorite egg in the birds gallery - taken from the rear of the display, so I wouldn't be blocking the spotlights. I just love the patterns on this egg!













Philippe was having problems with blogger, trying to upload his pictures, so I found a way to upload them differently. You can view the whole set here. He'll add his comments when he gets a chance to, later. :-)

Philippe: I got a 90mm 1:1 Tamron macro lens because they were absolutely *out* of the cheaper nikkor 60mm micro. This lens rocks :D

The lens is a bit of a pig, so I have to use either a tripod, high ISO or a flash... The cat did not appreciate my choice here ;)















*NO* clue what this bug is, but I liked the focus point.. Manual is almost mandatory with this lens as auto hunts for a while.















Synthetic Bismuth; again, with the manual focus set a little within the structure. I think I'll be kissing this lens goodnight for a while.






























Gypsum.. Pretty... monosyllabic...















This was one of my first tests of the lens.. "Don't... move.. the pencil....." :P

90:365 Talking back.

Anna: We didn't head out at all today, as we normally do on Fridays. My shift last night ended shortly after 1am, and I was just too achy and tired to head out.

Our younger daughter loves jigsawpuzzles. The only flat surface we have that's large enough for them is the box the BBQ came in - and it can be tucked away under the back of the desk at the end of the day. So every day, she slides out the box, grabs a folding chair and brings out the plaid seat cushion she won as a door prize during this year's Robbie Burns Day supper.

Tiger, we've discovered, loves the seat cushion. As soon as my daughter leaves the chair, the cat will jump up and position herself in the hollow left by the "doughnut hole" in the middle. I had tried a few shots when I guess she got tired of me, so she turned around and positioned herself like this, with her head under the back support of the chair, and started listening to my daughter, who was standing behind me and talking to her.






Then she started to talk back. *L*

89:365 - Higher Learning - updated: Morning Walk

Higher learning takes a sharp left turn.... :D

Philippe: Not sure if this was supposed to be higher learning or 'advanced worship', but it's still funny :D





Anna: Had another sleepless night, so I went for an early morning walk in the river valley. It helped. :-D The following pictures are from my walk.



I almost wore this guy before I saw him. Do you have any idea how hard it is to focus on something that's swinging? I'm sure you do! *L* This is one of a very few pictures that was at least partly in focus. :-D


















During the walk, I passed several groups of bushes that were filled with birds. Mostly, I just heard them and saw the leaves moving after they fluttered away, but I did manage to actually see a few. I lightened this photo a bit, so the bird is actually more visible in this picture than it was IRL.











Here, I'm looking back towards home from one of several cliff points along the path. This point is a fair bit beyond where I took this picture a while ago. I'm about half way up the valley on this path, give or take a few feet.












I could hear the bird. I *knew* it was there. I could even tell which tree it was in. I still had to stand and stare for at least a minute before I spotted it. Ah, the joys of zoom. This photo also got lightened up a bit and the bird is more visible in the photo than what I was actually able to see when I took it.

I don't know what this bird is, but it has a voice about 3 times larger than its body. ;-) We have one that lives near our apartment. It starts singing every morning at about 3 am.

Every. Friggin'. Morning.

Guess how I know that? *grumblegrumble* Some mornings, it's so loud, I have to close the window so I can get back to sleep!